Anger Suffers While Grief Withdraws
by Dark Desperado
Summary: Through the death of a mutual best friend, Dave and Karkat are thrown together in having to deal with the sadness and blame they both feel.


Anger suffers while grief withdraws

Everyone stood, as silent as they could, some with tears streaming down their faces and others sobbing heaps of anguish. Even those hiding behind masks of anger or those of shades could not hide the heartache; as much as they didn't want to admit it. And, as the casket lowered into the ground there was not a single dry face around the diverse crowd. John Egbert was going to be full heartedly missed.

Dave Strider sat in his room oblivious to the hum of the many electronics on all around him. This warm March afternoon offered nothing new to him Having realized this, he lay in his bed, lost in a world of deep bass and fast beats. His phone buzzed on the other side of the room, and he silently weighed the pros and cons of getting up to check it. Finally, letting curiosity get the better of him he got up to read it. It was from John, and it read,

Still wan't to get that date with Jade? I can help you out. Meet me at the park.

Dave kept his cool. It's not like he really liked Jade all that much, sure she was a good friend and all, but John completely believed they would be perfect together.

Dave grabbed his phone, headphones/ipod and skateboard as he walked out the door to go meet John; the only thought in his mind was hoping it'd be an interesting afternoon.

It only took him 5 minutes to get to the park, and 15 for him to start getting worried. John only lived 5 minutes away by car and there was no doubt that that little dork was going to drive there; he was so proud of his new license. After waiting as much longer as he could stand, Dave decided to ride Johns house, and bumped into Karkat on the way there.

"Karkat, what a… pleasant surprise to see you here." Dave remarked with the sound of a smirk in his voice.

"Hello." He mumbled gruffly. "John was supposed to meet me here. Something about getting me back with Terezi. I guess Eridan's hosting another one of his regally pain-in-the-ass parties and he had a plan"

"Well, have you seen him around yet? He was supposed to meet me here," Dave pulled out his phone to check the time "26 minutes ago."

"No. I have not. Why the fuck do you need to see him anyways."

"Well I am going to go see if he's still at his house. It's not really like him to be late." Dave said, avoiding Karkats question.

Dave got on his board and put on his headphones before Karkat could even think about starting a rant. Riding away from him at a slow pace, he got about 20 feet away before turning around and shouting "Coming?"

Karkat grumpily put his hands in his pockets slumped his shoulder and shuffled behind Dave.

Dave and Karkat got a total of two blocks before they noticed an accident in front of them. As the two of them got close, they could see two cars wrapped around each other, only one ambulance on standby. But when they reached the scene, it both stuck them how utterly familiar the car was.

One of the two ambulance drivers was prying the door of the blue trucks door open, and that's when they could tell it was the car the both new, and the driver was none other than the young man they were both on their way to see.

Dave hopped off his board, a look of terror on his eyes, known only to him and hidden from the rest of the world behind his shades. He nearly pushed the driver to the ground as he peeled the door off of Johns vehicle. One look at Johns face, and the scene around him and he knew there was nothing to be done. He silently backed away, keeping as straight of a face as he could manage. Inside, he wanted to break into tears; he wanted to curse john for leaving him. His best friend was gone and he didn't know how to handle it, so he did what he normally did and kept straight face.

Karkat took a moment to really absorb what was going on before he too ran towards the truck. Though, unlike Dave, Karkat was more expressive with what was happening. He grabbed John by the neck of his shirt and shook him, getting blood from the wounds inflicted by the broken windshield glass on sprayed on himself. "WAKE UP FUCKER!" Karkat yelled. "JOHN YOU BULGE SUCKER ANSWER ME!" He shouted once more, tears in the corners of his eyes. Something then changed in his face, a look of fear washed over, soon covered by grief. He sat down on the side of the truck, curled his feet up to his chest and started to weep into his arms. Dave sat down besides, looking out at the street. The ambulance drivers slowly got John's lifeless body out of his truck and put it on a stretcher, then covered it with a white sheet. One boy trying to keep his cool and the other trying to keep himself from punching anyone and anything in the face. For one, hiding his sadness was his only hope; for the other, anger was his outlet, just not yet.


End file.
